Plainly put, Soonish is the most soulful podcast about technology that you'll ever hear.

I'm Wade Roush, a technology journalist and audio producer based in Boston. Welcome to Soonish—a podcast where we learn how to navigate the future, together.

Why does the present look and feel so different from the past? How do we know the future will be different from the present? The answer is technology, which keeps giving us new ways to work, build, and live.

But a lot of people seem to think technological change is just something that happens to them. They see new inventions like social media or Siri or self-driving cars coming into their lives, and they feel they have no power to alter their course.

I don't believe that's true. When we understand where tech ideas really come from—and how we adopt them, or abandon them—we can see that we each have a real say in how technology spreads. And then we can be a little more intentional about the kind of future we’re building. That's what the show is about.

Soonish is now part of RadioPublic's Paid Listens program. The app is 100% free, with no hidden charges or subscriptions; it’s easy to use; and it works on Apple and Android devices. When you listen to Soonish on RadioPublic, everyone benefits!

Episodes

What’s ubiquitous but invisible, versatile yet temperamental, goopy when it’s hot and brittle when it’s cold, as old as civilization yet as new as the screen on your smartphone? The answer is glass. This week on Soonish, we ask what glass really is, and we look at how it will fit into our world in the future.

A groundbreaking virtual reality exhibit called "The Enemy" explores the psychology of war—and drives home the new medium's power of persuasion. If VR is an empathy machine, could it also become a propaganda machine?

Big news! Soonish has joined Hub & Spoke, a new Boston-centric collective of smart, idea-driven podcasts. In this episode, hear "The Shape of History," the pilot from our fellow founding show Ministry of Ideas.

Longform narrative podcasts like Soonish are free to listen to, but they aren't free to make! If you value thoughtful reporting about technology and the future, consider joining the generous and loyal supporters who've made a per-episode pledge at the subscription crowdfunding site Patreon.

Can a city's history crowd out its future? We ask how Boston's ultra-modern Zakim Bridge got built, and why officials are spending more than twice as much to restore (rather than replace) the much older Longfellow Bridge.

Why do our so many of our productivity tools, like email, to-do lists, and calendars, make us want to run and hide? This week we look at technologies for managing our personal futures, and why it's conceivable that less is more.

When humans return to the moon, will they be government-employed astronauts, or private citizens? This week we explore the #newspace boom—the veritable meteor shower of startups working to develop space for economic gain.

Hear how Carl Sagan and extraterrestrials helped to kickstart my science journalism career, how the Challenger disaster woke me up to technology’s double-edged nature, and how the New York World’s Fair of 1939 got me thinking about the world of the future.